See How Terrifying the World’s Tallest Roller Coaster Is Going to Be

This four-minute animation gives you a front seat view as the terrifying 'Skyscraper' climbs 570 ft before plummeting through loops, dives and spins

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Plans for what will be the world’s tallest roller coaster were unveiled Monday in Orlando, Florida.

‘The Skyscraper’ is part of Skyplex Orlando and features a 570 ft climb before dropping its riders into spins, loops and dives. It will open to thrill-seekers in 2017, the Independent reports.

Riders will be flung over angles more acute than 90 degrees and tumble into several barrel rolls.

“Skyscraper will not only take riders higher than ever before, but also introduce one thrill right after the next – there’s no ‘down time’ on this four-minute coaster experience,” president of U.S. Thrill Rides, Michael Kitchen, told the Orlando Sentinel.

For those not brave enough to be launched down the coaster but who still want a piece of the action, there will be an observation deck 535 ft above the ground.

Marlins Sign Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton in the Largest Contract in U.S. Sports History

Mike McGinnis — Getty ImagesGiancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins makes some contact at the plate during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park on September 11, 2014 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The 25-year-old slugger is set to make more than $300 million over 13 years

The Miami Marlins spared absolutely no expense this week to ensure that their star outfielder Giancarlo Stanton stayed with the franchise.

Late on Monday, the baseball club announced through their website that the team and Stanton had agreed on a new, record-setting 13-year contract worth $325 million — making the deal the largest in North American sports history, according to CBS Sports.

“This is a landmark day,” said Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, according to MLB.com. “I’m happy for the city. I’m happy for him. And I’m thrilled for baseball. We have a player who is committed to us, and we’ve committed to him for the life of his career.”

Miami’s all-out financial offensive to keep one of baseball’s best sluggers on their roster is likely designed to inject new momentum in the franchise’s fan base, after years of disappointment. The Marlins have failed to reach the playoffs since 2003 and recorded the lowest payroll in the league in 2014.

The team is scheduled to hold a formal press conference later this week in Miami to announce the finer details of their new contract with Stanton.

Florida Executes Man Convicted of Killing His Wife and Stepdaughter

Handout—ReutersDeath-row inmate Chadwick Banks is seen in an undated picture from the Florida Department of Corrections in Raiford, Fla.

Chadwick Banks had spent half his life in prison

A Florida man who spent more than 20 years in prison for killing his wife and stepdaughter was executed by the state on Thursday.

Chadwick Banks, 43, was administered a lethal injection on Thursday evening at the Florida State Prison, Reuters reports.

Banks was arrested in 1992, four days after he fatally shot his wife Cassandra Banks while she was sleeping. He later confessed to raping and killing his 10-year-old stepdaughter Melody Cooper soon after the shooting.

Banks’ execution is the 89th in Florida since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Cops Stopped a 90-Year-Old Man From Feeding Homeless People

Lynne Sladky—APHomeless advocate Arnold Abbott, 90, of the nonprofit group Love Thy Neighbor Inc.,right, shakes hands with a Fort Lauderdale police officer, left, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Abbott and a group of volunteers were feeding the homeless in a public parking lot next to the beach when he was issued a summons to appear in court for violating an ordinance that limits where charitable groups can feed the homeless on public property.

They were enforcing a controversial law against outdoor feeding, designed to reduce large public gatherings of homeless

A Florida senior was stopped and issued a citation by police last Sunday for trying to feed homeless people at a Fort Lauderdale park.

Arnold Abbott, 90, runs a group called Love Thy Neighbor and has been providing food to the homeless for over 20 years. He had barely served three or four of the 300 meals he prepared when police officers stopped him, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

The officers were enforcing a new law against public feeding sites, which is aimed at reducing the city’s homeless population.

“I’m not satisfied with having a cycle of homeless in city of Fort Lauderdale,” explained mayor Jack Seiler. “Providing them with a meal and keeping them in that cycle on the street is not productive.”

A Celebration Cruise Liner Was Evacuated After Hitting an Unknown Object at Sea

Passengers speak of panic and fear

Passengers on board a cruise through the Bahamas had to be evacuated Friday when their ship struck an unknown object at sea and lost power.

The Bahamas Celebration cruise was en route to Florida when it was forced to return to port on Grand Bahama Island after the incident, which occurred around 9 p.m. Friday, CNN reports.

Passengers told the news network that there was panic on board.

Armando Fana, 44, said: “There was folks crying … You could see people were kind of jockeying for the life jackets.”

Other passengers alleged that the crew were not organized. Cindy Parette, 47, said: “One crew member would say one thing, and then another crew member would say something else … They had no idea what to do.”

Celebration Cruise Line said in a statement that the passengers were placed in resorts on the island.

“No passengers were ever in any danger, and everything was handled in an organized and efficient way by ship, corporate and Bahamian personnel,” the cruise line maintained.

The ship’s 960 passengers and crew were returned to Port Miami on Saturday evening and two Celebration cruises due to leave on Saturday and Monday were canceled.

Florida Man Gets Life in Prison for Killing Teen Over Loud Music

Bob Mack—APDefendant Michael Dunn walks back into the courtroom after a short afternoon break during his trial in the Duval County Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla. on Sept. 27, 2014.

He shot at unarmed black teens 10 times

A Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killing of an unarmed Florida teen after an altercation over the teen’s loud music, the Associated Pressreports.

Michael Dunn, 47, was convicted of first-degree murder after a September trial. Earlier this year, a jury in February couldn’t agree on whether to accept Dunn’s claim that he acted in self defense when he fired his gun 10 times at a vehicle carrying 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who was shot and killed in the altercation. The jury in February did convict Dunn on three accounts of attempted murder, one for each of the passengers riding in the vehicle with Davis.

The racially-tinged case — Dunn is White and Davis was black — has drawn comparison to the shooting of other unarmed black teens like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

In practical terms, Friday’s decision changes little for Duncan, who already faced a 60-year conviction for the attempted murder convictions. The prosecution did not seek the death penalty.

Several deaths while in prison custody are under investigation

On Oct. 1, Latandra Ellington was found dead inside the Lowell Correction Institution in Ocala, Fla., apparently from repeated blows to her stomach. About a week and a half before, the 36-year-old inmate had written a letter to her aunt, saying she was concerned for her safety in prison and claimed that an officer named “Sgt. Q” was threatening to kill her.

According to attorneys representing Ellington’s family, an independent autopsy shows blunt force trauma and hemorrhaging to her body from what appeared to be punches or kicks. The attorneys, along with several organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International, are calling for a federal investigation into her death.

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The Ellington case is one of several suspicious deaths in state prisons that have made headlines in Florida, including a deadly incident in 2010 involving Randall Jordan-Aparo, who reportedly died while being gassed in his cell, and Darren Rainey, who died in 2012 after being forced to take a scalding hot shower that caused his skin to separate from his body.

Ellington’s death is the third fatality in custody at Lowell this year. Two others at the prison are under review by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

While the inmate mortality rate in Florida and across the country has remained relatively steady over the last decade, Florida outpaces most states in terms of mortality rate per 100,000 inmates, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Florida Department of Corrections. In 2001, 182 prisoners died in Florida compared with 297 in 2011, but the population also grew at a similar rate over that same time period. The mortality rate per 100,000 prisoners slightly increased from 253 in 2001 to 294 in 2011.

Part of that may be due to the rapidly aging prison population in Florida, which mirrors the state’s population generally. From 2001 to 2008, the number of Florida inmates who were 55 and older increased by 161%, says Bill Bales, a criminology professor at Florida State University. And the number of federal and state prisoners in the U.S. who were 55 and older increased 94% in the same time period, according to Pew Research.

Overall and nationwide, the largest share of prisoner deaths—almost 90%—are due to illness. But the share of state prisoner deaths due to homicide—which includes homicide committed by other inmates, prison staff or those resulting from assaults prior to incarceration—have increased from 1.4% in 2001 to 2.1% in 2011 around the country, according to BJS.

This year in Florida, there have been three homicides and one suicide in state prisons. Investigations into 99 other deaths are currently pending.

Dan Mears, a criminal justice professor at the University of Florida, says prisons with increases in suspicious inmate deaths often have problems that start at the top and work their way down. Florida’s Department of Corrections, for example, has gone through four leadership changes in the last five years.

“At the end of the day, when you’re asking why some prisons have higher rates of suicide or higher rates of suspicious deaths and why they increase over time, it’s often because they’re being poorly administered—and oftentimes they’ve hired new officers who aren’t as highly trained,” Mears says. “That could potentially fuel those deaths.”

Mears adds that badly run prisons often have inadequate training for officers and don’t properly teach them how to handle conflicts with inmates, which can often lead to fatal consequences.

In September, the Florida DOC fired dozens of employees, many of whom have been involved in deaths that are currently under investigation, including that of Jordan-Aparo, who was gassed in his cell. Their dismissal letters said they were fired for participating “in a force incident that resulted in the death of an inmate.”

A Lowell prison official, Sgt. Patrick Quercioli, is now being investigated in Ellington’s death, according to the Miami Herald, and has been arrested twice while tallying 22 use-of-force filings while working for the DOC.

“Our department should be held to the highest standards, and I have zero tolerance for anything,” DOC Secretary Michael Crews said in a statement.

As the state reviews the case, attorneys for Ellington’s family, who also represent the family of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen shot and killed by George Zimmerman in February 2012, are calling for the Department of Justice to investigate.

“She was not sentenced to the death sentence,” said civil rights attorney Daryl Parks, according to the Herald. “The Department of Corrections certainly owed her far greater protection.”

Florida Man Guilty of Murdering Teen in Fight Over Loud Music

Bob Mack—APDefendant Michael Dunn walks back into the courtroom after a short afternoon break during his trial in the Duval County Courthouse in Jacksonville, Fla. on Sept. 27, 2014.

Dunn was already likely to spend the rest of his life in prison after being convicted of attempted murder, but could now be sentenced to life without parole

A Florida man was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday in the 2012 death of 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who the man shot and killed following an argument over loud music.

Michael Dunn, 47, had previously been found guilty on four counts in Davis’ murder, including attempted second-degree murder, during his trial this past February. His original jury, however, was unable to come to a decision on the first-degree-murder charge. The Florida jury finally reached a verdict of guilty after several hours of deliberations Wednesday following a retrial.

Dunn, who could now face life in prison, showed no emotion when his verdict was read, according to local newsreports.

During his trials, Dunn argued he shot Davis out of self-defense, claiming he saw the teen flash a weapon before opening fire. CNN reports detectives did not find a weapon matching Dunn’s description on Davis’ body or in his car.

This Is the Most Sexist Republican Ad of the Year

The College Republicans National Committee ad aimed at women describes Florida Governor Rick Scott as the perfect wedding dress

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Updated October 2, 11:45 a.m. EST

In case there is any debate about whether 1) Republicans really want young women on board for the midterms and 2) they’re confused about how to do it, the College Republican National Committee ad for Rick Scott (produced, ironically, by women) will settle the question once and for all.

The ad features Brittany, a young undecided voter, who appears to be shopping for a wedding dress, but she’s actually shopping for candidates for the Florida Governor’s race, get it? Because women don’t like dirty old politics, women like wedding dresses!

She has her heart set on the “Rick Scott” wedding dress, because “Rick Scott is becoming a trusted brand — he has new ideas that don’t break your budget.” But then, frumpy old mom chimes in with some Democratic drivel and tries to get her to buy an ugly dress with sleeves called “Charlie Crist.” The ugly dress comes with “additional costs” like “$2 billion in taxes, $3.6 billion in debt, and 15% tuition increases” which are represented, of course, by an ugly veil, ugly sash, and ugly necklace. Because veils are easier to understand than debt, obviously.

There’s also an identical ad running in Illinois, to endorse Bruce Rauner for Governor.